Her Baby
by sweetsnow73
Summary: Yusuke, Kurama, Yukina, Hiei and Kuwabara think about their mothers.  Fixed some problems that were pointed out in reviews.
1. Young: Atsuko

This is inspired by "The Baby" by Blake Shelton. The mothers of the YYH boys are very different and in Kuwabara's case, never even seen, so these are tributes.

If it sounds in character it'll be a miracle. Yusuke doens't know his astronomy very well.

* * *

_My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it._

_Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)_

To say the least I was surprised by how many people showed up at ma's funeral.

Many of them looking less then approachable and more like they should be in jail.

Not that they could pull any funny business with me watching them, I'd kick their asses but still, I doubt the rest of the visitors where all that comfortable.

Keiko kept giving them glances but after one of them looked at her she stopped. She held my hand.

I never really questioned the things ma did. She drank, can't say I didn't for my own reasons (some of which Keiko claim to be _'deeply rooted feelings'_ pfft...). She wasn't a saint, neither was I. We were each other's only family and she kinda took care of me.

Housing and food qualifies, right?

Well, these guys kinda bring it into perspective. My question is how she even knew the mafia.

Some things will probably never been explained. I just can't believe it.

What was she? A hitman?

Did she drop drugs off or something? I mean I knew she didn't do any of the hard stuff and she could be trusted for that sort of thing. Ma was always someone you could trust with secrets and when it really mattered to do things. Like getting me back into school (of course that turned out to be rather...useless.)

I guess my whole life I never heard the whole story. I was busy with my own life, the fighting, skipping school and Keiko. Then Spirit World. I still remember how bad ma cried over me (her own patented way mind you) and from there we never really talked about, she cried a lot at first, I remember when I'd wake up and she'd be so happy she'd cry. Must be a mom thing. But yeah, busy. I didn't really think of my mom as a person, so much as a really drunk friend.

I guess if I thought of her as my mom I'd remember I didn't have a dad and that would always get me mad.

Keiko always calmed me down if that came up.

I look at the group again. I squeezed Keiko's hand and her parents are looking at us. Mafia to the left, support for...me I guess...to the right.

Stupid Cirrhosis of the liver. I must have kept her going though. Docter said it was years in the making. She was drinking a little at first, but I had kept her busy as a kid. Then when I went out on my own she had to fill the hours a bit more I guess.

Keiko told me once she wanted to wait to have kids because, once you're a mom your always a mom. You could find a cure for cancer, place a man on Jupiter and do the 10 meter dash in 4 seconds but if you were a mom, you were always a mom. Kinda like job security. She also said that it would be horribly hard to be a mom, and she wasn't ready for that yet and that 'well, it would be hard but you know what, Mom's always have fun with it. If you love your kids they could blow up a car and you'd pat them on the back and say that was nice but lets not do that again, sweety.'

I thought to myself that was rather masochistic but whatever. I think I'd like to be a dad.

Someday.

Not now, not today.

Today is for ma. The woman I simultaniously kept alive and ran down. The women that gave me the space I needed no matter how sad she got, because she knew that's how she could show she loved me.

Keiko hugs me when I start to cry.


	2. Knowledge: Shiori

_My mother loved children - she would have given anything if I had been one._

_Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)_

I used to think I hid myself from mother well.

But now as I look at the pictures and the brief but telling paragraphs about them, I realize she must have known something was odd about me.

She loved me anyway...

When I started reading faster then any of the books had said I should have.

When I walked earlier then when the relatives told her I would.

When I knew things I shouldn't have known, the slips. They happened in the early years, the scary years for a new mom.

But she loved me anyway.

Later on I didn't slip up as much, her little notes showed a relief about that. Mother's friends and some of their children are here now. The ladies are talking about stories of mother.

One of them brings up how mother liked to visit their children, probably when I was at day care or some other such thing.

She was always surprised at the children and how they behaved.

Then the ladies laughed, said it was one of my mother's charms that she found the most basic baby behavior adorable, and how pre-school children who screamed and yelled actually made her happy- she'd always made them comfortable and happy.

My brother said that when his father brought his baby book and the related baby stories, mother would be very intense. She'd look through it and compare...

I was never really a child, and that's what my mother wanted most. It must have been a blow, those children, perfectly human and normal-needy, noisy all around her while her child...was not.

Not what she expected, but she loved me anyway. With her perfect heart she loved me anyway.


	3. Love: Hina

_Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same. _

_Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)_

**_Pt. 1 Yukina "Despite of..."_**

When it snows around here I think of my mom. When I lived among the Koorime it'd snow a lot.

There, on the island, I would see mothers and daughters. They look a lot like each other. I am told I look a lot like my mother too. I don't have any memories that stand out about her. I was still an infant when she died. I was aware of things but not that much. Everything is blurred in colors of white and blue.

I notice human babies are the same way. Kuzuma says some babies are adopted by other people, people that didn't create them, and sometimes the children never learn the truth. They grew up with the new parents...

That would have happened to me, if not for my brother, the whispers, and the fact that mother and daughter look alike. I could never have called someone else 'mother'.

She refused to give up love. She loved a man. She loved us. Both of us, my brother and me. Which is why she refused to live in a world without the both of us.

Sometimes I feel cheated; I would look at these daughters and feel jealousy. The mothers wouldn't let me very close to the girls my age. But I would always tell myself my mother loved me. In her own way.

So when it snows, I might get sad for a while, but, I know that my mom loved me. So I want to find my brother, he is my family and I want him to know that she loved him too.

**_Pt. 2 Hiei "Because of..."_**

I remember her screaming for them to let me live.

As I reflect about her, I realize that she's the only person to openly do that.

I remember the years of fighting, stealing and killing and how her gem calmed me. Like love from a distance. Yes, I think that is how I could describe it. Sentimental but, tonight is a night for that.

Distance... funny how things work out. Distance from my mother, and my sister. One I can't get close to because she closed that door and the other I can't get close to because I closed that door first.

My mother died because she thought I was dead. Love was a bad choice for my mother, if she hadn't loved that man or me, she would still be alive. Too much love, I won't let Yukina die because of love.

I won't let myself die because of it either.


	4. Impossible: Mrs Kuwabara

Because I have very little evidence proving anything about Kuwabara's mother, I'm making this up. You do see his father in the manga but I don't see his mother. Which is odd because you see everyone elses mother and no one elses father.

* * *

_Motherly love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. _

_Marion C. Garretty_

I didn't know my mother. She died when I was a baby. Yet she made such an impression I could never forget, because she died alone. Someone tried to rob her on the street and it went wrong. It was the first time she went out by herself since giving birth to me.

Shizuru, after that, changed. I saw pictures of her in lace and bows but after our mother died she got tough. On the playground she'd beat up kids trying to pick on me.

There are pictures of sis bottle feeding me, pushing me on swings and stuff like that, then when she deemed me old enough, she began teaching me to fight. And to be honorable.

Have the honor and true strength the man that killed our mother didn't have. To be like our father and like every good man should be. Eventually when I got old enough I met my friends. And in their hearts they where honorable men.

For a while I tried to keep up with demons, can't say I recommend it. Few can do it, it's nearly impossible. I held the truths my sister taught and my mother inspired throughout it all.

Shizuru will still push me to do things I wouldn't think possible. With a kick or a punch usually but this is the way she shows me to always be my best. Just like my mother would have wanted, such a selfless wanting for me to do great things. Impossible things.


End file.
